


Bee My Valentine

by elephantfootprints



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crafts, Fluff, Homemade cards, Johnlock Gift Exchange, Kid Fic, Kid Mycroft, Kid Sherlock, M/M, Matchmaker Mycroft, Matchmaker Sherlock, Matchmaking, Quilling, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fic Exchange, briefly, hints of Mycroft/Lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 17:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantfootprints/pseuds/elephantfootprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="xenaashe.tumblr.com">xenaashe</a> who gave the most adorable prompt! <i>"Sherlock and Mycroft grudgingly exchanging homemade valentines"</i> Hope you like it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bee My Valentine

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the [Johnlock Challenges](johnlockchallenges.tumblr.com) Valentine's Day gift exchange.
> 
> Beta'd and Britpick'd by the lovely [Holesinthesky](theresholesinthesky)
> 
> (Posted early as I am going to be away for the proper posting date!)

“Are we all finished then?” Mrs Holmes asked, forcing herself to sound cheerful though she was not optimistic about her little experiment.

Mycroft and Sherlock were as different as night and day, yet somehow equally challenging. Mycroft was staggeringly intelligent, peculiarly old fashioned, fastidious and knew from a young age how to wield silence and stillness as weapons. In contrast, Sherlock was average at best, completely uninterested in anything that happened more than a week ago, messy, bursting with energy and sulked and threw tantrums to try to get his own way. Mrs Holmes loved them both, of course, but she was not blind to their shortcomings. They were difficult boys, and the struggle Mrs Holmes had in trying to get them to relate to one another was worsened by the large age gap. Nonetheless, she was determined to foster some brotherly affection and card making was the latest in her plans to achieve this.

“Yes Mummy,” Mycroft replied, sounding dutiful but making his disdain for the activity quite clear in the set of his eyebrows. Mrs Holmes ruffled Mycroft’s hair, and leaned down to inspect Mycroft’s efforts.

To Mrs Holmes disappointment, Mycroft had meticulously recreated the example card on the page. Perfect coils of paper arranged precisely to form a floral arrangement and the words, _To Sherlock, With Love, Mycroft_ written in a perfect imitation of the sample text.

Mrs Holmes sighed. 

“Mikey, you were meant to make your _own_ card,” Mrs Holmes said.

“ _Mycroft_ ,” Mycroft correctly irritably. “I was under the impression this was meant to be an exercise in expressing fraternal affection, and fraternal affection was expressed. The endeavour was a success. May I be excused?”

Mrs Holmes shook her head. “Let’s see how Billy did, first.”

Sherlock was hunched over the table, completely oblivious to Mycroft and his mother’s discussions. 

“What about you, Billy-boy?” Mrs Holmes asked, not terribly hopeful about her younger son’s attempt, but trying not to let it show.

“Sherlock,” Sherlock said, quiet and cross, scrawling the finishing touches on his card before shoving it at his mother.

It took a few seconds before Mrs Holmes realised what she was looking at.

“ _William_ ,” Mrs Holmes said, exasperated. “We have been over this.”

Sherlock’s card was much larger than Mycroft’s. A sheet of blue paper had been covered in a child’s body formed with pinky-orange curls of paper, and then carefully clothed in a t-shirt and shorts. The child’s feet were left bare, and Sherlock had helpfully included some arrows to draw attention to this fact, captioning the card with the words, _NO SHOES_.

“We allowed you to contact the police, and they have made it very clear that the poor child’s death was a tragic accident,” Mrs Holmes said tiredly. “You need to let this go. It’s not productive to obsess over it.”

Sherlock frowned at her. Mrs Holmes sighed again.

“Okay boys, you can go play,” Mrs Holmes said.

Mycroft stood up and reached out to grab Sherlock’s hand and tug him out of the room.

***

John spotted the first card as soon as he walked into the kitchen. The kitchen was endlessly messy, full of bizarre odds and ends, and John had long since come to accept that he might find anything tucked in the breadbox, or nestled in the freezer between the peas and the frozen lasagnes. Eyeballs, toes, codes, socks, tins of dirt, letters, lace... The card was nothing noteworthy. Still, it caught his eye, sitting innocuously on a cleared section of the kitchen table, bright blue with orange blobs. On closer inspection, it was some sort of kids Valentine’s Day card, the orange blobs two fish formed from coils of paper surrounded by a love heart and the words, _Be My Goldfish_.

Amusing himself with the thought that Sherlock was investigating playground crushes and studiously ignoring the fact that he was decidedly single and unlikely to change that fact in the next two weeks, John turned back to making his breakfast.

In the rubbish bin, unnoticed by John, were half a dozen rumpled versions of the card on the table, but these, and the final, were gone by the time John came home from work and started throwing together some dinner.

*

Four days later, John stumbled downstairs in the middle of the night to use the toilet and found Sherlock sitting at the table, hunched over a tangle of paper strips, muttering furiously to himself. Relieving himself took priority over puzzling over Sherlock’s latest antics, but when it returned it became clearer what he was doing. 

“Sherlock,” John said slowly. “Are you making a Valentine’s Day card?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

“Is it for a case?” John asked.

“Of sorts,” Sherlock said absently.

“Right,” John said, clapping Sherlock on the shoulder and stumbling back up the stairs to bed, smiling to himself. Living with Sherlock was never boring.

*

Nothing was said about the cards for a week. And then one day, three days before Valentine’s Day, there was a card on the table addressed to John.

John frowned at it. It was a simple oval on crisp parchment paper, the words, _John, I don’t mind being on the losing side with you_ framed by two simple red flowers.

John continued to frown at the card, until Sherlock emerged from his bedroom.

“Sherlock,” John asked. He picked up the card and handed it to Sherlock. “What does this mean?”

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes, chucking the card back on the table. “I once told Irene Adler that sentiment was a chemical defect found in the losing side. We managed to beat her because she fell in love with me.”

“Right,” John said slowly. “Why is it on written on a card, addressed to me and covered in hearts made from rolled up bits of paper?”

“It’s quilling,” Sherlock said with a scowl. “And it’s from Mycroft.”

John went completely still, trying to process this information.

“Myrcroft made me a bloody Valentine’s day card?” John said, his voice dangerously quiet. “ _Mycroft_ has given me a handmade card to tell me he loves me?”

“No,” Sherlock said quickly, looking quite disgusted. “Mycroft made you a card to tell you _I_ love you. Git.”

“ _You_ love me?” John asked, the mystery of Mycroft’s involvement easily overlooked in the face of this new evidence.

“What? No,” Sherlock said, and John was busy feeling disappointed and confused about his disappointment and so missed the implications of the speed of Sherlock’s denial.

“Oh,” John said. 

“Myrcoft is just interfering,” Sherlock said, sounding cross and almost embarrassed. He left the kitchen suddenly, returning with a handful of card he dumped on the table with the other. John glanced at them, and something clicked in his mind.

“Have you been sending cards to Lestrade?” John asked suddenly.

“How did you know that?” Sherlock said, and John was pleased to see he was almost taken aback.

“He’s been texting me, trying to work out what was going on,” John said. “Something about goldfish and the government and the law?”

Sherlock scowled.

“Mycroft is suffering under the deluded belief that being different means he needs to be alone,” Sherlock muttered, snatching up the cards again and stalking back to his bedroom. John watched him, bemused, unable to stop the swell of affection that rose irrationally in response to Sherlock sulking. Then he remembered Sherlock’s denial of love, and pressed the feeling back down, burying it in disappointment and pulling out his phone to text Lestrade.

 _Greg, you will not believe this mate, but those cards? From Sherlock. His attempt at playing matchmaker. Apparently he thinks Mycroft needs a friend (boyfriend?) and you were the unlucky person he chose_.

John contemplated telling Lestrade about Mycroft’s return efforts, but the thought of Lestrade’s amusement at the concept of Sherlock fancying John, or worse, his pity if he realised how John felt, stopped him.

*

There was another card on the kitchen table on Valentine’s Day. John spotted it as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Sherlock sat at the table, casually reading the paper, so John immediately knew something was wrong. He cautiously approached the card and picked it up.

It read, _To: My favourite blogger. You are almost as interesting as a serial killer - SH_. Below it, as far as John could work out, was an inkpot with a large feather sticking out of it.

“This isn’t Mycroft’s handwriting,” John said slowly.

“No,” Sherlock said thickly. John nodded and put the card down on the table.

“So you... when you said you don’t love me, you didn’t mean it?” John said.

“I may have exaggerated that fact slightly,” Sherlock said and John laughed, pulling Sherlock in for a kiss.


End file.
